


Redistribution of Matter

by vassilissa



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, F/M, Romance, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-19
Updated: 2015-11-19
Packaged: 2018-05-02 09:51:25
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,168
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5243846
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vassilissa/pseuds/vassilissa
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hermione knew how the events of this era played out.</p><p>She has no idea what this new plot twist is.</p><p> <br/>(In which Tom Riddle has been annihilated.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Redistribution of Matter

**Author's Note:**

> This is probably the longest one-shot I've ever written. Hope you'll like it! There's a lot of angst so be prepared. Also Hermione is a bit ooc but I'm sure you'll find your way around her.

1.

 

When she arrives, weak and confused and _sick_ , Albus Dumbledore takes her under his wing, knowing, always _knowing_ , and having prepared for her coming.

 

She's transferred from Beaxbautons. Her family moved and this is all very sudden, but everything will run smoothly. Professor Dumbledore always helps Gryffindor students. Professor Dumbledore has been informed about her decision.

 

(She had made sure of that.)

 

Fifty four years into the future.

 

 

2.

 

It's a good thing she's fluent in French—her parents wanted her to be fully educated, and so Hermione started her piano and french classes when she was only six years of age.

 

A girl called Margot Droope took an interest in her from the moment she walked into the Great Hall.

 

She's a Ravenclaw.

 

She's blonde, with big green doe-like eyes and talks a lot.

 

A _lot_.

 

She also has a shiny prize, that is in a wooden cupboard somewhere, and it's important and she's very proud of herself.

 

Hermione has her eyes focused on the Slytherin table.

 

He isn't there.

 

 

3.

 

Hermione has quickly taken Astronomy, History of Magic, Defence against the Dark Arts, Divination and Study of Ancient Runes to be her selective classes, just enough subjects to keep the appearances and the suspicion away from her, so she can put in motion her plan.

 

Hermione shares all of these classes with Tom Riddle.

 

Who will be the core subject for, hopefully, _less_ than a full year.

 

Hermione Granger sees only blood and falling _corpses_ in her dreams anymore.

 

She's sure she won't soon enough.

 

 

4.

It's almost December now, and soon most of the students will go home, which will prove to be the _perfect_ opportunity to stop—to _kill_ , Riddle.

 

Her fingers are itching with magic.

 

 

5.

 

He _has_ noticed her of course, how could he not, entirely a stranger and peculiar, in the way she talks and the way she looks, hair bushy but not quite, a boring shade of brown, and eyes _dark_ but _light_ ; a contradiction.

 

A question mark.

 

She's almost as smart as _he_ is—great and resourceful and fucking _brilliant_ —she could excel in Slytherin, but she's a Gryffindor and it's boring and it's _strange_ and it is entirely fascinating—

 

Her name is Hermione Granger and she's a _mudblood_.

 

She has his whole attention.

 

 

6.

 

Astronomy classes were every Wednesday at evening, like fifth year, and the task was to study Ursa Major's stars and write an essay about planet Saturn.

 

Hermione had never taken this class and so this fact could be used as an excuse to ask for help.

 

And who better than Tom Riddle, the Prefect boy himself, to help her.

 

She didn't forget to have a bit of an accent while she talked to him. He was a brilliant man, he could figure out that everything was a lie with her.

 

(Everything was a lie with her.)

 

“Can you show me how to use my telescope?” she asks him, standing before him, eyes wide and full of thirst for knowledge.

 

He looks surprised, like she can't really want _help_ for this, or _anything_ really, but he nods, he smiles a soft smile, a _polite_ smile, and he helps her.

 

She didn't expect anything else.

 

Not from Riddle.

 

 

7.

 

“'Three Leaps of the Gazelle', right?”

 

“Precisely. Found along the south border of the constellation.”

 

“You have taken this class before?”

 

His eyes are beautiful then, with the dusk illuminated at the glinting blue, a mystery, a _shame_ , a secret—

 

“Since first year,” he replies.

 

A fascination towards the sky then, and he must have thought it magnificent from that hill, far from Hogwarts, while he was waiting to attack the only real home he was ever given.

 

Hermione thinks _this went_ wrong _somehow, what happens in my time is_ not _his original plan_ , but Hermione always tries to see the good in everyone, no matter who it is apparently, and so she doesn't get carried away.

 

Many have died because of this handsome boy. Many more will die if she doesn't fix it.

 

Beauty is terror and that's all it is.

 

 

8.

 

Her beauty is not really there when you first look; her beauty is in the way she speaks and the way she knows and the way she learns.

 

Her beauty is _conservative_ , it doesn't want you to see unless you really want to look, and Tom wants to, _desperately_ , because this girl has _way_ too many secrets and he can't even _sleep_ properly anymore.

 

Sometimes she smirks on her own like she knows everything.

 

Like he's dead.

 

Like he can't do anything about it.

 

So he worries about that and he also helps her with her Astronomy essay, two hours of pure work and silence, and there's something he can't help but notice, something rather absurd—

 

Something he _feels_.

 

Calmness.

 

He has to know _more_ about her.

 

 

9.

 

“How is Beauxbatons?” he asks her one evening, in the Library.

 

She visibly stills. He frowns.

 

“It's... _girly_ ,” she offered. “We learn how to play musical instruments and dance and everything is delicate and _soft_. The school is bright and full of windows, Dark Magic is not even a thing there,” she adds thoughtfully, chewing on her lip.

 

Tom tries to avert his eyes from it.

 

(He can't.)

 

“You didn't like it there?” he offers, clenching his fists behind his back.

 

Hermione decides she's very good at lying, as she is very clever, and so she can continue playing along.

 

Riddle seems almost interested in what she has to say about a school she has never been to.

 

“I think Hogwarts fits me more,” is all she says and then she's writing again, about stars and constellations and planets and skies far away from them.

 

It's December ninth.

 

 

10.

 

Margot seems to assume they're friends or something, and not wanting to be rude, Hermione goes along with it.

 

There's a boy called Alphard. Alphard Black. Hermione figures he's an uncle of Sirius' probably, and then she's painfully reminded of her best friend's hurt over his godfather.

 

Sirius was a heavy loss.

 

Alphard is nice enough, not like his sister, Walburga, who is known as the _bully_ of the school. A curvy girl, with black hair and a vile mouth, who is already promised to Orion, Sirius' father, and it's a cruel joke, this era, with faces she recognizes but does not know, with faces cruel and hateful.

 

It's like she's being _punished_ for something.

 

She likes Alphard. He seems to despise Riddle as much as she does.

 

Perhaps.

 

 

11.

 

“Dumbledore knows.”

 

It's a Friday morning, and Hermione is walking with Black to class. His suspicions are correct, Riddle was the one responsible for the Chamber of Secrets, and yes, Dumbledore knows, but Dumbledore can't do much about it.

 

Headmaster Dippet, an awful excuse of a Headmaster, is very set on his beliefs.

 

Hermione thinks Dippet is _stupid_.

 

 

 

12.

 

Hogwarts stinks of Dark Magic and she can _feel_ it.

 

There's almost no turning back, no fixing the situation.

 

Then she remembers that Riddle is a teenage _boy_.

 

Brilliant, yes, but a _teenager_. A simple boy, in theory.

 

She knows how to handle those.

 

 

13.

 

They're friendly, these two; Riddle helps her with Astronomy and they say the typical hello's every time they meet at the hallways, but that's it.

 

And it's been two weeks since she arrived.

 

She's been careless and times slips by, no matter how slow or fast—

 

She needs to _act_.

 

There's a Christmas ball in a week and a half.

 

 

(13/5.

 

“It's peculiar how you're so brilliant but you're a muggle-born.”

 

She lifts her eyes from her parchments. Studies him.

 

“Are you a Pureblood?”

 

He seems to hesitate, though his face is indifferent.

 

“No.”

 

“Then I could ask you the same thing.”)

 

 

 

 

14.

 

“Are you sure you want to continue in this method?”

 

“Yes, I'm sure.”

 

There's a mischievous look in Professor Dumbledore's eyes, but he finally nods.

 

“Be _very_ careful, Ms. Granger. A teenage boy he is, but he's no _normal_ boy.”

 

 

15.

 

She wears her skirt higher now, at least three inches above her knees, and there's a certain way she greets him when they study together in their silence and their respective thoughts.

 

Like the way she crosses her legs.

 

And the glint in her eyes every time she makes eye contact.

 

It's all very unsettling.

 

No, not something he isn't used to when it comes to girls.

 

Not at all.

 

She's a fucking _tease_.

 

It's the way he likes it, now, with her.

 

It's the way he wants more.

 

 

16.

 

She appears friendlier with that Black bloke, in the way she laughs, in the way she holds his arm, in the way she walks closer to him—

 

She's playing a _game_. With him. And he doesn't know where it's all coming from, Hermione Granger didn't seem like the type of girl, but perhaps she is, perhaps she always was—

 

He could play too.

 

(He does.)

 

 

17.

 

It's the fifteenth of December now and there's a rumor around the school.

 

About them.

 

She hears none of it.

 

It's not juicy enough.

 

But he corners her that same day, takes her by the wrist and leads her somewhere private, somewhere with barely any light—

 

He corners her, smirking, eyes stormy and needy, eyes manic and sharp and searching—

 

His breath is hot.

 

She makes the first move.

 

And he's picking her up, and holding her thighs tightly against him, and his hand has closed around her throat, like this is what he wants to do, to choke her, the witch, this girl, a girl, driven him away from his task and his purpose—

 

He's backing her against the wall, her back hitting the hard, stony wall enough times for it to hurt, again and again and again, but Tom Riddle doesn't seem to care, he's ruthless, he just _takes_ , and he doesn't even let her breathe, it's only _his breath, his breath, his breath_ , hot and heavy with lust and _madness_ —

 

Could it be she has undone him already?

 

Could it _really_ be?

 

She savors the moment. She has never been kissed like that.

 

“What is it?” he asks, breathless, hands holding her in the air, hair a mess, eyes glossy.

 

“What is what?”

 

“What do you _want_ from me? What are you fucking _hiding_?”

 

She kisses him again.

 

 

18.

 

He announces they will be going together to the ball and she smiles, because of course Tom Riddle orders and says and it's _final_.

 

She gets introduced to Lestrange, one of Tom's followers really, not a friend, but Lestrange seems oblivious to this.

 

He's good enough for what she's planning to do next.

 

Her plan is simple and sneaky and girly, but it's working, of course it's working, Hermione knew boys will always be boys, no matter universal damnation and diabolical executions.

 

She fucks Lestrange, in class after Divination is over and everyone is gone, and he has been warned already, has been told not to touch her, Tom Riddle is a caveman apparently, but Hermione is good at sticking to plans and she executes perfectly, flawlessly, until they're both a panting mess and she's smirking so much her cheeks hurt.

 

“What am I supposed to do about Tom?” he asks her, staring at her breasts.

 

“Nothing. There's nothing between us.”

 

“You're testing dangerous waters, Hermione, you don't know Riddle—”

 

She stops straightening her blouse and looks at him sharply, full of rage and memories and hurt and fire—

 

“No, _you_ don't know Riddle, _I_ fucking _know_ Riddle. Don't say _anything_ about this. He'll probably use _Legilimency_ on you.”

 

And she's gone after this, grinning and giggling to herself.

 

 

19.

 

The plan is simple really.

 

 _Seduce_ Tom Riddle.

 

Make him _neglect_ his stupid fucking plans.

 

Make him _beg_ for mercy you don't have.

 

Make him beg like your friends begged him to spare them, after hours of torturing them.

 

It was working fairly well.

 

 

20.

 

“What are you playing at, Hermione?” he bursts into her room, throwing out her roomates.

 

The common room is empty.

 

She sighs, rolling her eyes. She continues with her homework.

 

He _growls_ then, snatching the chair she's sitting on, and turning it so she can look at him. She squeals, eyes wide staring into a _sea storm_.

 

He is livid. His anger is radiating with waves that splash against her and _drown_ her.

 

“Who the fuck are you, huh? What do you _know_?” he's roaring, and she can only stare, because this is it, this is where Voldemort comes from, a different person altogether, _this_ person, not the one who helps her study and talks about stars and _planets_ —

 

She gets it now.

 

There are two different people in him. Hermione doesn't know how, but it's scary, it's terrifying and she wants to stop the game now, wants to go home, but she can't, not yet, because she'll be returning to _nothing_ , everyone is dead and everyone is gone and _he's_ ruling and—

 

“Too much of a challenge for you, Riddle? What did you think, that we're _exclusive_ or something? We want to _fuck_ each other and that's all it is, you're not _stupid_ , you're—”

 

He grabs her by the hair now, tugging her head behind, so she can look _only_ at him, the other hand on her throat again, like that's how they _are_ ; dangerous and terrifying and fucking mad.

 

“I'm _what_?” he barks. “Do you _know_ what I am? What _am_ I, Hermione, _say_ it. You _know_ , I know you know, _say it!_ ”

 

“A _monster_!” she yells and tears come streaming down her face, because this is going _horribly_ wrong, her plan was going _perfectly_ , what could possibly trigger it to go downhill?

 

“You're a monster,” she repeats, gazing straight into his eyes, straight into his non existent soul, and he releases her then, stepping back, shocked and furious.

 

He nods. Again and again. He's tall and he's beautiful and he's evil and he looks like he can kill her, like maybe he will, but instead he asks.

 

“And what do monsters do? What are _monsters_ , Hermione?” he asks in the voice that he uses for Astronomy questions, and it's entirely wrong, pathetically wrong, and this is all that she wants right now—

 

This is _all that she wants_.

 

Because she hates him, she _loathes_ him, and she wants to _kill_ him, wants him to fucking die at last, wants to tear down his empire and his plans and his fucking ideas and his _daddy issues_ , but she looks at him and she sees it, the dark, the mad, the _interesting_ and it's confusing and it's thrilling and it can't be, but it _can_ , because this is what Tom Riddle can do, it is simple and it is effective and all.that.she.wants strangely.

 

“They _take_ ,” she whispers, taking off her shirt.

 

He is shameless in the way he looks at her, it's raw and it's real, because Hermione can see he's never felt it before.

 

“And what else?” it is a low sound, in the back of his throat, as he grabs her waist and presses her against him, hands angry and hold possessive.

 

“They're manipulative and put together wrong and cruel and they take and they never give back,” she mumbles, while pressing her lips against his jaw, drunk of him, drunk of his magic that seems to envelop her in the same way that he does.

 

“They're narcissistic and entitled and they're never false, and they're heartless...”

 

Down his throat, at his chest, undoes the buttons and tugs and he obliges and it's surprising and it is—it's—

 

“I want you,” he grunts and—

 

And then _she's_ undone.

 

 

21.

 

She doesn't understand it and Alphard doesn't either.

 

No one does.

 

She fucked his friend, his follower, his servant, and he saw it, through memories, through magic, and Lestrange has been punished, and he's certain Hermione wants to kill him, but—

 

But.

 

He fucked her too.

 

And it wasn't enough, because she fucks him in her own way, daily, when she's not talking enough to him, or when she doesn't asnwer his questions, or when he hit her—

 

They're fucking dysfunctional.

 

He's toxic and it's a mess and she doesn't look like the person that stays and he wants her to stay, wants her to know about his plans, about how he will infiltrate the Ministry and then be at the top of the Wizarding World.

 

How he's beginning to put her into his plans too, sitting right next to him in the dais and it's all very true.

 

They go to the Christmas Ball together.

 

 

22.

 

He's obsessive when he finds something interesting.

 

And so maybe it was how long she talked to Avery, or how she danced with Alphard, or how much she had to _drink_ —apparently a Slytherin had brought _firewhiskey_ —and maybe it's all of these things that end catastrophically.

 

He's punching him way too fast for her to register how it is even happening.

 

He's _animalistic_ almost, a feral animal, hungry and _bloodthirsty_ and she's scared and she's crying and everyone watches and Alphard tries to hold him back, yells at him how much he's scaring her, and he.doesn't. _understand_ a single fucking word, he just knows hands, and blood and—

 

It's _Lestrange_. He's drunk too and he wants more, wants to do it again and she declines and he doesn't _get_ it, doesn't see the bruises on her throat.

 

This is not what she came to do.

 

So she lets Tom kill him, in front of teachers, students, because somehow this is what it has come to, he's just fucking mental, there's no way around it and she leaves from the Great Hall, walks out, in the fresh air and the silence and the music has stopped playing now and she's crying, she just wanted revenge, she just wanted to see him _suffer_ , now she's crying—

 

He will get expelled. And he has no home to go to, just an orphanage and she doesn't know when she started feeling pity and _sympathy_ for him, doesn't understand why she can't go back in her own time, even if she fixes it— _all of it_ —

 

Professor Dumbledore is unable to help her.

 

Fifty four years is a long time to go forth.

 

It's December _something_ and she'll stay there forever.

 

 

23.

 

He's spitting blood when he comes out, tells her Dippet said he'll deal with him later, now they're taking Lestrange to the nurse's, he's probably not going to make it—

 

He's not sorry.

 

But then again he was not sorry when he murdered hundreds of people, so she's reaching for the stars tonight.

 

There is so much blood on him, and it's not his, and he really does look like a monster then, eyes black and lethal, and Hermione cannot, for the life of her, stop the sob that escapes her mouth, a grieving sob, that makes Tom still and look at her like maybe this affected her, makes him figure that he probably fucked up his life for good, who knows what they'll do to him—

 

Hermione knew how the events of this era played out.

 

She has no idea what this new plot twist is.

 

Her dress is very pretty.

 

Simple and elegant and a deep royal green—

 

She has never felt more unworthy.

 

He's still breathing hard and she does not dare to look at him, does not dare to say anything, because when he's angry he's blind, and he lashes out at anything, and she didn't expect anything less from Lord Voldemort.

 

He still doesn't know her secret.

 

The stars are beautiful. They're everywhere and they're bright and they're always there—

 

That's the only thought Tom manages to steal from her.

 

She didn't feel him.

 

So he tries to bring it back on the day on that tower, in Astronomy class, where she asked him for help and he, for the first time in his life, didn't feel disgust for another person.

 

“Can you put together Ursa?” he asks, while connecting the dots himself.

 

Hermione doesn't answer immediately.

 

“Yes, I think so...”

 

“Aren't they incredible?” He pauses, takes in everything he can see, breathes it all in until he can't. “Stars.”

 

“They're not so incredible when you're worried about Death-Eaters hitting you with an Avada in the back,” she says and it's time.

 

Damn the timeline, it's all fucked anyway.

 

His head turns instantly. “What?” He sounds clueless and that's the difficult part.

 

This boy, this Tom Riddle—He doesn't know, doesn't recognize anything of all that's happened to her. Not yet.

 

“Your plans. What you want to do. You've killed _everything_. The sky is always foggy with Dark Marks, not a star in it, you spread havoc, you destroy and you certainly do _take_. I have _nothing_ left; where I'm coming from.”

 

And he's speechless and he's begging, pleading to look inside her mind, to see, to know, because he doesn't seem like he wants to hurt her.

 

Not really.

 

So she lets him.

 

And it is a terrible thing; Legilimency. It's like someone's navigating your own brain, picking and choosing and leaving and falling—it makes her want to scream.

 

But he sees and it is tragical, it is not what he wants, it is a disaster, it is chaos and there is no order and it is _not_ what he wants.

 

What he has planned.

 

And he tells her this.

 

“But it becomes this. It _happens_ , Tom.”

 

“It's not what I want, not what I fucking want...” and he chants this, low and personal, and his eyes are searching again, finding, figuring out, _calculating_.

 

“So that's why you're here. No transfer, no playing dumb. You're here to kill me.”

 

“Or to _change_ you.”

 

But he's far away now, thinking and being Tom, analogical and obsessively clever, too brilliant—

 

Most of the deeds have been done. He has killed his uncle and he has killed Myrtle, and maybe his father too, and he has split his soul and made the first Horcrux and—

 

“I'm probably going to get expelled,” he finally says, still thoughtful but finally back, beside her.

 

“Or not. You are one of the best students to have ever walked the halls of this school, Tom. They _can't_ kick you out, no matter what.”

 

“Of _course_ they fucking can,” he barks and he's angry again. “What do you think this is? A _fairytale_? I almost _killed_ Lestrange, in front of _everyone_ , Dumbledore wants my _head_ — Good grades or not they're not going to keep me here. The least they could do is expel me, and I'd be _grateful._

 

“This ends _everything_. I cannot become Minister, I cannot become a—” He closes his mouth with his fist and Hermione knows—he's freaking out.

 

“How can you just do it to me? How do you fuck him when you know what I can do. How I can kill for you if it means you don't leave me."

She puts his head on her chest, and he almost doesn't breathe, before he grabs her by the waist and they stay like that, until Headmaster Dippet comes to take him in his office.

 

 

24.

 

She _cannot_ forgive him.

 

He did get expelled and yes, it is her fault, she started this, and in a way, she got what she wanted, because now there are more difficulties he has to face, maybe she did stop him from becoming this evil power that all it wants is death and chaos—

 

She let's him fuck her one last time, because she stays until she graduates, and then probably till she dies, and she guesses she has been erased from her time by now, it's been too long—

 

It's the thirty-first of December, and it's his birthday and it's his last day at Hogwarts, last day seeing _her_ , because _who_ knows what will happen with them, everything is a mess, of course it is.

 

He's aggressive and not sorry at all, as he pounds into her, stealing her breath away, making her beg, drive her to the _edge_ —

 

 

25.

 

She cannot forgive him.

 

Cannot forgive him for what he's done, cannot forgive him for what he _will_ do, for how he is—

 

They're too dysfunctional. Too messed up.

 

She.Cannot.Forgive.Him

 

 

26.

 

But she is in love with him.

 

 

27.

 

Hogwarts becomes a nightmare after Tom leaves, too many rumors and too many nasty glares, a Lestrange that is barely recognizable—

 

She manages. She's Hermione Granger.

 

 

28.

 

He has finished her essay for Astronomy class.

 

She cries.

 

 

 

29.

 

Perhaps it was always meant to be like this.

 

Maybe she was destined to come here, whatever the outcome. She _did_ change the course of events.

 

She did not have to kill him.

 

 

30.

 

It's June and she's almost six months pregnant.

 

He's working at Borgin & Burkes, in Knockturn Alley, plans altered and paused.

 

When he sees her—

 

It's an annihilation all in itself.

 


End file.
